Podcasts Vox Talk Vox Talk #18 – Curt Schilling TomTom VOs, Gracenote, Colin Campbell, Rick Sparks, Don LaFontaine
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Vox Talk #18 – Curt Schilling TomTom VOs, Gracenote, Colin Campbell, Rick Sparks, Don LaFontaine

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Stephanie Ciccarelli
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Boston Red Sox Pitcher Curt Schilling Records VOs for TomTom, Gracenote Software Unmasks Classical Music Fakery on iPods, VOICE Conference; 3 Weeks and Counting, Rank High for Local Search, Colin Campbell, and Rick Sparks salutes Don LaFontaine in the VOX Box.

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Boston Red Sox, Curt Schilling, TomTom, GPS, Gracenote, classical music, iPod, Mozart, VOICE Conference, Local Search, Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Ask, Colin Campbell, Rick Sparks, Don LaFontaine.

Transcript of Vox Talk #18

Male: Episode 18
Stephanie Ciccarelli: Hi! I’m Stephanie Ciccarelli, and you’re listening VOX Talk, your break away from the everyday. We’re in the final weeks before the VOICE Conference and are ecstatic to bring this 18th episode of VOX Talk to you. From Curt Schilling of the Boston Red Sox to Gracenote software Mozart would have loved, this show is a mixed bag. Ready to fly?
Male: The Loop, informing you of news and current voiceover events.
Stephanie Ciccarelli: Just when you thought that celebrity voice-overs were only performed by voice matchers or celebrity voice impressionists, TomTom, a company that supplies voice-overs for GPS systems, announced that they’ve added the authentic celebrity voice talents of Boston Red Sox Pitcher Curt Schilling to their roster of voice talent. For about 13 dollars, you can replace a voice-over like “you are approaching your destination” with “You’re almost home, slide! Slide!” (Sorry for the bad Curt Schilling impression!)
To learn more about this story, visit mobilemag.com.
In the world of technology, classical music downloaded to iPods will now have it’s own digital ‘fingerprint’ thanks to Emeryville, California based company Gracenote. Gracenote is owner of the largest database of music information in the world. The company recently unveiled the first standard for the display of classical music on digital devices, which will greatly affect the downloading, cataloging and play listing of classical music, able to identify true artist recordings from fraudulent recordings.
To learn more about the Gracenote “Classical Music Initiative” software and the music it has unmasked, visit popmatters.com.
To wrap up, you may have heard that AFTRA, one of the unions in the US, has just jumped on board as sponsors at the VOICE Conference to take place in 3 weeks time in Las Vegas. AFTRA members only heard recently about the conference, so the team at VOICE has decided to extend their early bird pricing until March 10th.
If you’ve been waiting and this extended incentive has given you the inspiration you needed to make a decision now, don’t hesitate – we want to see you at the Palace Station! Visit voice-international.com to check out stellar lineup of lecturers, sessions and events.
Something I’m really looking forward to is seeing Bob Bergen’s one-act play. The VOICE conference promises to present very special moments for those who attend, so get your tickets and book that flight!
Male: The Biz, helping you grow your voiceover business.
Stephanie Ciccarelli: Today in The Biz, we’ll discover one of the hottest, untapped resources for searching on the web… Local Search!
Local search is becoming a very popular tool for people who want to get things done locally and support local businesses. Google lets you search for local businesses by name, keyword, or location with satellite maps.
A good example of local searchers include people who only purchase local produce within a certain radius of their homes. For consumers concerned about helping local farmers and contributing to the prosperity and economy of their city or region, local search has become a blessing in many ways for both buyers and sellers.
Ok, so now we know what local search is, but how can you benefit from it?
Here are 5 quick Tips for Increasing Your Local Search Results
1. Add your address to your Voices.com profile. Check the box that says “Show my contact information on my Voices.com website” and click “Save” to ensure that your contact information is displayed on Voices.com.
2. Submit your Voices.com website to the Local Search Engines. Remember that just because you’re in their main “Web” search results doesn’t mean you’ll be in the local search results too. Add you name to the local search results to ensure you’ll be listed (there are several links you can use at VOX Daily to do this).
3. Trade links with other local businesses. Comment on blogs that cover local news and link back to your Voices.com website, which states your address. This will give Google, Yahoo! and MSN the necessary information for creating a clear picture of your physical location.
4. Write an article about how you serve your local community. Two websites you can submit to for fast inclusion are eZineArticles.com and GoArticles.com.
5. Join local organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce or the Better Business Bureau. These organizations validate your mailing address and link to your website.
So, there you go!
On another note, we’re accepting new segments for The Biz. If you have a story or some tips to share, I’m personally inviting you now to send in your audio commentaries to be aired in The Biz segment. If you’re a voice instructor, an agent or a union rep, this segment was made for you! The ideal length of this segment is between 1 to 2 and a half minutes. You can send in your audio commentary or clip to me electronically by emailing [email protected]. Listen to past episodes to get an idea of what others have recorded.
Male: Tech Talk, walking you through the technological landscape.
Collin Campbell: Hi, everybody Colin Campbell again from AffordableAnnouncer.com, I wanted to share my experiences recently with my delve into this craze of tube microphone preamps, they’re older range. Everybody has the sound of tube guitar amps from the 60’s and tube radios from the 40’s and 50’s and think that there’s warmth there, a quality there are not available in Solid State Electronics no matter how advance or modern they might be.
So, I bet and I thought, g, I really like to try that Avalon M5 but its $16,000 and I don’t think that’s possible right now. So, I found this product called the PreSonus TubePre at a $100, I thought, “Hey, it’s a $100, I’ve got a little extra money let me try it out” so I bought one in my local music store, brought at home. Very well made device, heavy, made of steel, looks impressive. Plug it in, turn it on and basically went from my microphone to it the PreSonus TubePre and then into the line input of my voice processor, to replay its internal mic preamps with this tube preamplifier.
Well, I was under whelmed, I thought – distorted. Now there’s two control on the tube microphone preamp generally, there is drive and gain. Hard to understand the difference, they sound similar. Well, I’ve learned through owner’s manuals and research on Google that gain is just the overall amplification of the device. Drive is how much tube there is inserted, injected into the signal. How much drive the tube is receiving, how much of the tube affect you’re getting through the preamp? What is the tube affect? Well, it’s supposedly a warmth, kind of similar to a voice processors compression in a way because its rounds off the top of your wave forms which supposedly gives you a warmers fatter sound.
Well, in the case of the TubePre with this stock tube that was installed in it upon installation. It gave a distorted sound in my opinion and there was not improving upon my using solid-state Interface that was built in into my voice processor. So, I did a little more research, all of this tube microphone preamps use a 12 AX-7 tube which I found amusing because back in the day, in the 70’s I used to repair a televisions and many of them still had tube in them and often in the audio sections of the television sets they 12 AX-7. That’s the common audio tube, you find in guitar amps of the ancient vintage and you found them in loud televisions that still have tubes and radio and such. So, upon researching on Google about a 12 AX-7, I found you suppose to go ahead and take your $100,000 PreSonus TubePre and replace the stock tube which a cheap tube from China with something better either a new old stock or NOS tube that you buy on eBay for, I don’t know tens of dollars, a tube that was never sold back in the 60’s, that’s still available in the box or you can actually buy a new production tube.
Most of the reviews I read said, you should buy something called a Tungsol 12 AX7 and put that in your PreSonus TubePre to improve its sound. So, I bet it’s only $15 for the tube, so now I’m at $115, what the heck is worth of try. I order the tube and I got it in, put it inside the PreSonus TubePre and yes, it did improve the sound. But the question is how much? I think it took the distortion away that I was getting from the cheap Chinese tube, however I still felt listening to old recordings from my standard solid-state microphone preamp built into my voice processors that it’s sounded better, the solid state did then the TubePre. Did some AB comparisons, now the TubePre didn’t sound bad but it was not an improvement.
So, I got to tell you my final assessment on tube microphone preamp is that they’re bit of a fad, bit of craze of face. Now, I don’t know if you spend $16,000 on a Avalon to preamp maybe you’ll have better look but the microphone preamp built into my voice processor total cost of $500,000 that includes a compressor or de-esser and noise gate downward expander and a EQ, it sound better overall than using in tube microphone preamps. So, that’s my take on that and thanks.
Next time we’ll try to cover balance versus unbalance audio and people trying to feed quality professionals sound into (anthan) jack and a sound blaster. Thanks for listening, Colin Campbell from AffordableAnnouncer.com. See you next time.
Male: VOX Box, answering your voiceover questions.
Stephanie Ciccarelli: We’ve had a rather interesting week on the blog with several unique stories, polls, and articles.
This comment comes from Rick Sparks, addressed to Don LaFontaine regarding his Oscars story:
“Great article! Thanks for taking the time, Mr. LaFontaine. I’m just starting to get my feet wet in this business, and you’re an inspiration.
An aside – it’s funny to read that, at your level of experience and celebrity, your table ends up with the same kind of collection of performers and purses that I encounter at some of my gigs. Continued success to you!”
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and appreciation Rick. Kudos to you too!
That’s our show for today. You may have noticed that I was flying solo in The Biz! Usually Julie Williams records 1 episode a week and generally we have another piece to air sent in by anyone else who would like to participate. In the past, you’ve heard amazing segments from Kristi Stewart, Bob Souer, David Boyll, Bob Green, and most recently Johnny George – hey, even Pat Fraley’s technically been in The Biz once. Well, suffice to say, this episodes spot could have featured you! That being said, if you have something you’d like to share, send your MP3 commentary to [email protected]. I’m Stephanie Ciccarelli. See you on Thursday!

Links from today’s show:

Local Search Article with links at VOX Daily
Colin Campbell
Rick Sparks

Stephanie Ciccarelli
Stephanie Ciccarelli is a Co-Founder of Voices. Classically trained in voice as well as a respected mentor and industry speaker, Stephanie graduated with a Bachelor of Musical Arts from the Don Wright Faculty of Music at the University of Western Ontario. For over 25 years, Stephanie has used her voice to communicate what is most important to her through the spoken and written word. Possessing a great love for imparting knowledge and empowering others, Stephanie has been a contributor to The Huffington Post, Backstage magazine, Stage 32 and the Voices.com blog. Stephanie is found on the PROFIT Magazine W100 list three times (2013, 2015 and 2016), a ranking of Canada's top female entrepreneurs, and is the author of Voice Acting for Dummies®.
Connect with Stephanie on:
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